Info needed: correct colours for WWII Aust vehicles

[Mrs Vampire]

To Take them one at a time.

The vickers was painted in three layers of paint. The 1930s paint was standard dark green as shown on the Pucka vehicle and the colour it is currently painted at Duxford. There were sufficient panels when removed to show its original from the factory colour and the subsequent layers. All the layers until its last sandy colour were dark green like british 1930s green

The final coat was post 1942 desert sand colour very much the same as the light stone mix suggested by Mike Cecils mix. It had been used as a small arms target vehicle and had quite a few coats of that colour overpainted.
The vehicle is on display at duxford and painted in colours that match its appearance in 1940 photographs...that is a very dark green .

I am quite confident they were army supplied paint not local purchases. The colours match the unit orders. Local purchase paint BTW was not something easily done in the forties and oil paints uncommon and expensive ( in the era of calsomine ) due to quite stringent rationing of such things. ( the archives show even vehicle manufacturers had difficulties with paint quality many complaints of poor adhesion and easily marked paint being recorded,,,,the formula standards were changed substantially ) I think it would have been much easier to get it through the unit supply chain and the war diaries and files indicate that is what they did.( see my earlier reference to the archive files which are viewable on line) Mixing up a local colour likewise doesn't make sense to me as I would imagine the unit got the paint in cans flipped the lid and brushed it on .

My Information is from the artifact itself. I am attempting to make sense from what the artifact is telling me compared to current information. So far there is a disparity sufficiently large to have me hesitant to make a final choice.

The FGT has three cabinets in the rear and two on the floor between the rear and front spaces. All of those cabinets have original factory painted finishes. There are no layers of paint on paint just the original factory finishes. Given the cabinets have been closed nearly all of their life I think little fading has happened.

That paint is congruent with a NOS sump guard I have. It is also congruent with the layer of paint directly over the American olive drab paint on my Stuart.
The Stuart was received in US Olive drab Nov 1942. It was immediately subjected to a modification program which entailed fitting various things in it and welding bits and pieces on to it then being repainted . The rub back reveals the paint used was certainly 1942/43 green. That green is substantially different from the green produced from the suggested humbrol mix even allowing for fading.

I understand from the archives my Stuart was modified in a facility in Melbourne.

My Stuart was then transported to Queensland being received in Feb of 1943 by the 13 Armoured regiment. This is about the time the disruptive camouflage order was issued. The Stuart then took part in beach landing exercises around Bribie island with other elements of the 3rd armored including the 2nd 4th. Photographs to hand show 2nd/4 Stuarts engaged in the same exercise, at point of entrainment and in action, painted in two tone Disruptive paint. This is congruent with paint existent on My Stuart.

The evidence from the artifact shows the Disruptive scheme was Light stone painted over the single coat of green paint applied at the time of the modification program . The Light Stone was applied, roughly , by brush. Rubbing back the Stuart indicated the disruptive pattern follows quite closely the drawing in the orders of the time ( Archive reference previous)

I conclude the vehicles of the 3rd Armoured division were all painted in Disruptive camouflage in the early months of 1943 prior to their engagement in exercises around Bribie island.
The Light Stone on My Stuart is sufficiently thick so that, with careful rubbing back, unfaded parts are visible and there are areas around the grouser rail and so on that make me reasonably confident that it is very different to the sandy colour obtained from the Humbrol Mix. The 1940s black and white photos show what appears to be a very pale disruptive colour.
Indeed the Humbrol mix is very reminiscent of the top coat on my Vickers when I purchased it but Humbrol 121 is very much like the disruptive paint on my Stuart
My next step is I think to remove one of the locker doors from the FGT and get some kind of colour analysis done. I would be grateful to hear from anyone knowing someone who does that .
I am very grateful for all of your insights and suggestions....I have unfortunately become a top twenty micron fanatic...

I would like the appearance of my vehicles to appear as far as is possible as they would have appeared in june of 1943 during exercises in Queensland.
I would like to know more about the manufacture of My FGT.... It was made in 1942 but I don't know where.